How accurate is Zoopla ?

PZH

I know that property is worth what you are prepared to pay for it, but how accurate and in touch with reality is Zoopla?

To be honest, I have been looking at the Hinckley area but prices are slightly higher and the houses tend to be smaller in floor space.

So, today, I viewed the following...

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-22263474.html

and was pleasantly surprised at the size and price of the property.

But - Zoopla values it at just short of £96k !!

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/12-copland-place/coventry/cv4-9jy/5626241

Now this is nearly 20k less !! (Assuming one offers the full price).

Looking at the information page, the property was bought for 100k back in 2004 and not much has been sold since then

Does anyone know the area at all?

Would I get laughed at if I offered 110K ?

cattie

Zoopla is useless in most cases, take any figures it gives you with a huge pinch of salt.

It takes no account of any kind of work or even improvements such as extensions that may have been done to the property at all.

My neighbours house is listed at something around £158k on Zoopla as she bought cheap from an old lady about 8yrs ago & the house was in a dreadful state. It's current true market value is closer to £290k going by similar properties improved and extended to the same high standard that have been sold.

Do your own research, comparing sold prices for comparable properties in your area that have sold recently.

I don't know the area you are looking in, but if it were me I would laugh at you for offering me £100k as £15k off of a low price house like that is a lot. But, as many people advocate on here, if a property isn't selling, then try a silly offer as you can always up it (If you haven't completely upset the vendor!)

DPJames

Zoopla is absolutey pointless. It just seems to pluck random figures out of the air and then stick them on their site. WHich is worrying enough, but not as worrying as people using Zoopla as a bible.

19lottie82

Put it this way, when I bought my flat at the end of 2009, it was valued at 112k, I bought it for 105k. An almost identical flat , but with a slightly smaller lounge, sold 6 months ago for 110k.


Zoopla says my flat is worth 54k! You couldn't buy a 2 bed flat in my postcode for that at all. And I think you'd struggle to find one in the whole of Glasgow apart from the worst, and I mean worst, areas!

Running_Horse

Not as accurate as the search function.

Zoopla and rubbish brings up 39 results.

Thrugelmir

Useless. I revalued my own property by upgrading the listing.

Did so as neighbours was valued £35k more. Which for identical properties was far too wide a differential.

DPJames

If Zoopla was bog roll, it's be that horrible, hard, shiny, tracing paper stuff. The stuff your fingers go straight through.

PZH

Thank you all for your posts :T

Really set my mind at rest - thought I was losing my marbles for a minute

googler

The actual sold prices on Zoopla are fine, and broadly consistent with other prices sites such as ourproperty and nethouseprices.

Their estimates are another matter entirely, because their algorithms to calculate them can't know what's actually in each street;

Recent-build vs Older builds
Ex-council vs Privately-built
Traditional Cottages vs Newer Builds
etc etc

Any street could have a mix of housing styles like this, which affects the pricing, but Zoopla won't know.

bubblesmoney

As others have said already, zoopla is just a random number generator. Absolutely worthless for buyer or seller and a waste of space. I wonder how that site makes money at all.

When i was buying a few years ago, in a neighbourhood with similar detached houses, it was quoting a house at nearly 195000 or there abouts which was !!!!!!!! as similar houses had gone for a bit less. So I made a very low offer for a vacant property (vacant almost 1-2years) and owned by a company. They accepted my offer of 135,000 so i got my house for almost 60,000 less than the zoopla price.

Now because it knows the low price i paid a few years ago from official records, it uses their calculator and prices my house 30-40000 less than similar homes on my street even though some of them have smaller gardens than me both front and back and all built at same time by same builder to similar plans. Even semidetached properties nearby have sold for more than zoopla is pricing my 4b detached house. I know because a colleague bought a semidetached home nearby last year. So dont bother using zoopla as it is just some random number generator, do your research and buy or sell for the price that seems right for you. Only someone totally clueless would even dream that zoopla was even remotely accurate. Sometimes you can get good deals for vacant properties or repocessions etc if you move quickly, but usually they go to the chums of estate agents as i found out while i was trying to buy ages ago. I had made an offer for a similar house like mine nearby for the same price of 135,000 or there abouts (i say there abouts as this was a few years ago so not sure if i offered 130k or 135k) which i bought mine for but they apparently didnt accept my offer as i had not viewed the property before making offer but later found from another colleague who lives a few houses away and knew the owner that it was sold to someone else at 85000-95000 in a distress sale. The scumbag estate agents probably hadnt passed on my offer which was tens of thousands of pounds more than what it was sold for later. So watch the games estate agents play as the owners might not know what the agents are upto.

VfM4meplse

bubblesmoney wrote: »

As others have said already, zoopla is just a random number generator.

Yet other price calculators are are coming out with similar figures (for my property, anyway!)

Yes, you could argue that the same IT platform is being used behind them all....but surely EAs won't be using anything different?